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>> JULIA ROGERS, HOUSE PAGE: We were walking up—I guess that's First Street—

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to the Library of Congress to head to school,

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and I remember thinking, gosh, it's so—it's so pretty out.

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And then when we got out of school around nine,

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because we got out early for the House to be in session—

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we usually got out around 11, but we got out around nine—

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and we were walking across First Street to the Capitol,

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I distinctly remember turning to one of my friends and saying,

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"It's going to be a great day. Look at this beautiful weather."

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>> REPRESENTATIVE MIKE FERGUSON: I was walking across Capitol Hill

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over to the House side to, to my office in the, in the Cannon Building

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and on my way over, my cell phone rang and it was my chief of staff,

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who had said that there was a,

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a plane that had flown into one of the towers at the World Trade Center.

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And of course, my district in New Jersey—

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you know, from part of my district in New Jersey,

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you could see the Manhattan skyline, so many,

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many of my constituents worked in New York City,

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worked in the financial district, many of whom even worked in the,

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in the Twin Towers. So that was obviously a grave concern because

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we thought there was a plane that had accidentally been flown into the towers.

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>> EVE BUTLER-GEE, HOUSE JOURNAL CLERK: And everyone was huddled around the cloakroom

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and watching the result of the plane having flown into the first tower.

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And of course it was terrifying, and we were all commenting on it,

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and as we stood there watching, the second plane went in.

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That put the whole Democratic Cloakroom into a whole different mode,

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because clearly this was not a coincidence.

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I left the cloakroom, went back around to the dais,

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and told the House Parliamentarian John Sullivan, who was on duty that morning,

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that something really wrong was happening in New York.

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He subsequently whispered to the Speaker pro tempore, who recessed the House.

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>> CHARLIE JOHNSON, HOUSE PARLIAMENTARIAN: The House having recessed until 10:00 a.m.,

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and the House having invited a guest chaplain to do the opening prayer

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at, at 9:52, the Speaker was in the chamber

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eight minutes before the scheduled reconvening,

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with no explicit authority to reconvene any earlier than that,

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and Porter Goss happened to be in the chamber,

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and the Speaker asked him to preside

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just long enough to declare the House in a indefinite emergency recess.

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And so we put some words together to the effect that the

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recess was being called on an emergency basis prior to the reconvening time.

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He recognized the guest chaplain.

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>> FATHER GERRY CREEDON, GUEST CHAPLAIN: "God of peace and life,

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send your spirit to heal our country,

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bring consolation to all injured today in today's tragedy—

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New York and Washington—protect us

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and help our leaders to lead us out of this moment of crisis,

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to a new day of peace. Amen."

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And, of course, I read the prayer,

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and the gavel was hit, and they were dismissed,

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but there were only a sprinkling of people in the House that day.

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>> CHARLIE JOHNSON, HOUSE PARLIAMENTARIAN: And then Goss immediately declared the recess,

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which lasted for 24 hours and 10 minutes until the next morning,

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the 12th, at 10:15, whatever the reconvening time was,

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but Hastert, as soon as he saw Goss take the chair,

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was immediately ushered out of the chamber to an undisclosed place.

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>> BRIAN GUNDERSON, CHIEF OF STAFF, REPRESENTATIVE ARMEY OF TEXAS: We were ushered into the facility,

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which was, you know, your typical Cold War-type bomb shelter.

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And we went deep into it. There was obviously

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preparations for us to stay for a long while if we had to.

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>> STEVE ELMENDORF, CHIEF OF STAFF, REPRESENTATIVE GEPHARDT OF MISSOURI: And while we were at the secure location,

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I, I was sort of—the main thing that struck me there was that, that—

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our main source of information really was CNN, still.

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I mean, we sat in a room, and, you know,

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it was the top leaders of the House and the Senate together

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down through the Whips, and we watched CNN.

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>> FATHER DAN COUGHLIN, HOUSE CHAPLAIN: With that, they had the briefing and on speakerphone—

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Senate and, and, and House and

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said that they were going to come back at six and news hour,

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but we should all leave. And people, Members said,

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"We're not going to leave. We're not going to be a government in flight.

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We're going to stay here."

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>> JOHN FEEHERY, PRESS SECRETARY, SPEAKER HASTERT OF ILLINOIS: I remember we took a helicopter ride

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back from the secure location of the beautiful Virginia sunset,

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beautiful day, and seeing kind of the,

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the flames kind of still leaping up from, from the Pentagon.

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It was really quite, quite a sight and quite emotional.

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And we ended up taking the helicopter, landing at on the Capitol lawn,

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and seeing, you know, this beautiful sunrise sunset

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and, and, and the kind of—you know, before,

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the Capitol was guarded by, you know, just plainclothes cops,

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you know, there wasn't, there wasn't the, the

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big machine guns and anything like that.

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We, we arrive, and it had really become a fortress,

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and it was very odd to see that, and somewhat jarring,

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that we were kind of entering a new era of American life.

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And so we, we the helicopters land on, on the Capitol lawn

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and we disembark, and, you know, we get ready to do this press conference.

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>> TINA TATE, DIRECTOR, HOUSE RADIO/TV GALLERY: There were a couple of short speeches,

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and someone started singing "God Bless America,"

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and the rest of the people joined in,

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the rest of the Members of Congress joined in.

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And it was such an affirming act,

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a very simple but very affirming act,

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and because it was broadcast,

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people around the, the United States and around the world knew

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that the Congress of the United States was not terrorized,

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was not cowering, was not without plan,

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and was able to come together and was able to act that very day.